ThinScale Technology: Technical Report

Abstract

The objective of this project, is to design an application for ThinScale Technology Employees and Administrators. This application will allow the employee to register first and then log in using a dedicated form where they will be able to create events, book holidays and have a general overview of which days are available through a built-in scheduler form. They will also have access to a reporting tool, which will show general information about days already booked, employees information, sales data and they will also have the possibility of using a browser form within the application, to send emails and change their personal password. The most important part of the application is for the Administrators. From their point of view, they will be able to modify employee’s details, create a new entry, delete them, check and create payments, print pay slips, send emails, review reports and delete or review events or holiday coming from the scheduler form. All users will be using the same login form, but based on their role, the application will show different windows forms and user will have different permissions.

All the data shown in the forms is pulled from an external SQL Server stored in Microsoft Azure. The data is retrieved using stored procedure to increase security and lower the risk of SQL injection or penetration from non-authorized personnel and using firewall ports within the Azure portal to restrict access only to authorized IP address or IP addresses ranges. To increase also the account security, all passwords are hashed and encrypted, before being stored in the database, few criteria and requirements like minimum length, special characters, symbols and numbers, are also enforced. Admin or delegates that have the authority to do so will have the capabilities to check employees’ payment records, print pay slips, and compute new payments. The application will not be available on the public domain and the setup.exe file will be only available for download from “Box Works App”: a file sharing and collaboration tool. If the employees want the application, they will request it through the web page and a link will be sent to them for a secure download.